Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Tom and Joy Townsend Oberons said goodbye last night to our great friends Tom and Joy Townsend who depart May 9 for Seattle, Washington. Tom has served as treasurer of Oberon since its very first meeting in 1999 until he relinquished his treasury duties to serve as co-chair and chair of Oberon for the past two years. Tom's charm and intelligence have been mainstays of our Michigan band and we will miss him and Joy more than we can say. But they have already been welcomed by the Seattle Oxfordian contingent, and Tom is scheduled to present a paper at the Seattle Shakespeare Oxford Society . Words cannot express our deepest wishes for their very great happiness in their new home. We all celebrated Shakespeare's 450th UN-birthday together with a delicious UN-birthday cake! Shakespeare's UN-birthday cake! Celebrating Shakespeare's 450th UN-birthday April 28, 2014 at the Bloomfield Twp. Library:  Rosey Hunter, Rey Perez, John Rumierz, Richard Joyrich, To...

by Richard Joyrich Day Three (Saturday, April 12): The day began at 9 AM with Roger Stritmatter on Small Latin and Less Greek: Anatomy of a Misquotation . Roger discussed his take on how the First Folio came to be published. In this, he follows generally what Peter Dickson and others have been saying about the Spanish Marriage Crises of 1622-23 when there was an intention on the part of James I to marry his son Charles to the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna (daughter of the king). This proposed match to a Catholic was opposed by the powerful Protestant nobility, among which were the two "Incomparable Brethren", William and Philip Herbert, to whom the First Folio was dedicated. It seems clear that the publication of the First Folio at this time was, in some way, a political statement by this court faction.  It was also at this time that there was the big push to substitute William of Stratford as the author of the plays. Ben Jonson was hired to help in this endeavor. R...

by Richard Joyrich Day (Night) One (Thursday, April 10, 2014): This is your intrepid reporter on the spot at Concordia College in Portland, Oregon for the 18th Annual Richard Paul & Jane Roe Shakespeare Authorship Research Center Spring Conference. Actually, that's a bit of a misnomer, since for the past few years the conference was called the Shakespeare Authorship Conference and before that it was called the Edward de Vere Studies Conference. Anyway, I guess it's the 18th year that there was SOME kind of conference at Concordia University here in Portland. As you probably all know, Professor Daniel Wright, who started the conference, is no longer at Concordia, but Dean David Kluth and Earl Showerman were able to put together a program to keep the Conference going.  There were quite a few changes that I noticed. There is a new style of nametag, there is a new poster and logo (with the loss of the previous Oxford portrait that we used to see) and there ...

Stephen Greenblatt speaks during the closing session titled "Where are we now?" at the Folger Institute's "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography" conference held April 3-5, 2014 in Washington DC. Photo by Teresa Wood.  Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library By Linda Theil Regarding his mention of Holocaust denial in proximity to the study of Shakespeare authorship in a 2005 New York Times letter to the editor, Pulitzer Prize winning author Stephen Greenblatt, PhD , replied yesterday to Dr. Richard Waugaman’s request to make a public apology for his remarks. Greenblatt said: . . . I very much regret my Holocaust example, I had meant it only to call into question in the sharpest terms the apparent difference between the NY Times ' treatment of scientific consensus and its treatment of historical consensus. But I had not reflected — as I should have — that Oxfordians might draw the implication that I was likening THEM to a particularly abhorre...

Paladian Villa Zamboninal near Verona, Italy, photo courtesy Tuscany Now by Linda Theil A London-based, Italian-villa-rental company called Tuscany Now recently chose to highlight the Shakespeare authorship question in a recent post titled “Shakespeare in Italy” . (At last viewing, readers must link direct to the blog because there is as yet no link to blog posts from the Tuscany Now homepage.) Content creator Phoebe Ryan tied Italian sites to Shakespeare’s work, interviewed principals in the authorship debate, and referred to the work of Richard Paul Roe in his lifework, The Shakespeare Guide to Italy (Harper, 2011) in her "Shakespeare in Italy" post. She said: In Romeo and Juliet, we see the warring Montagues and Capulets against the backdrop of Verona, then Romeo’s solitude in Mantua. Famous for Juliet’s balcony as well as its inspiring Roman arena, Verona has monopolized on Romeo and Juliet. In Verona’s countryside at a beautiful Palladian...

Shelly Maycock and Roger Stritmatter at the "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography" conference held April 3-5, 2014 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Photo credit: Bill Boyle by Linda Theil The anti-Strat community was well represented among the 156 Shakespeare luminaries who attended the "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography" conference sponsored by the Folger Institute and the National Endowment for the Humanities on April 3-5, 2014  at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC . Anti-Strat attendees included: William Boyle, MA  Library and Information Science, owner of the New England Shakespeare Oxford Library , Forever Press, and EverReader weblog Peter Dickson, MA author of  Bardgate: Shake-speare and the Royalists Who Stole the Bard , Kissinger and the Meaning of History (Cambridge Press, 1978) Shelly Maycock Roger Stritmatter, PhD James Warren, author of An Index to Oxfordian Publications Richard Waugaman, M...

Still shot of The Globe from the award-winning Shakespeare authorship film Der Nackte Shakespeare (The Naked Shakespeare) directed by Claus Bredenbrock. Photo courtesy Kinofilm by Linda Theil Neue Shake-speareGesellschaft  (New Shakespeare Society) board member Hanno Wember of Hamburg, Germany sent an update on the German authorship film,   The Naked Shakespeare by Claus Bredenbrock .   Wember said: After the “Award of Excellence” (IndieFest, La Jolla, USA, November 2013) the documentary film by Claus Bredenbrock received the “Bronze World Medal, New York Festivals World’s Best TV+Films, USA 2014”, as released today, Tuesday April 8th, 2014, in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters show . For more information about the award, see 2014 NEW YORK FESTIVALS TV & FILM AWARDS FINALISTS  online listing. Scroll to "Germany" - "Cultural Issues" Der Nackte Shakespeare (The Naked Shakespear e) was screened at the SOS/SF annual con...